Conventional fitting detecting connectors have a spring built into one of the connector housings which is compressed during fitting. If the fitting operation halts before the two connector housings are completely fitted together, the corresponding connector housing is pushed out by the spring, and this informs the operator that correct fitting has not been achieved.
However, in a completely fitted state, the spring force continually acts on the corresponding side so that a force to separate the two housings is constantly exerted. This is not desirable. Accordingly, connectors have been developed in which the spring is compressed during the fitting operation and reverts to its original shape when the fitting is complete, thus releasing the spring force. For example, one such connector is described in Japanese patent publication No. 306575/92.
In this case, where the spring detects the completely fitted state and is then released, the easiest configuration to adopt is one in which the fitting detection is carried out by using the movement of a locking arm. In such cases, as is the case in the publication mentioned above, the locking arm and the spring are arranged in a distributed manner, so that locking arm is located in one connector, and the spring is located in the other.
Accordingly, in order to realise this kind of detecting connector, a necessary constituent of each connector housing is at least a locking arm or a spring. However, this places constraints on the configuration of the connector housings. For example, if an existing connector housing is to be replaced with one of a fitting detecting type, major design changes will have to be carried out on both the male and female connector housings.
The present invention has been developed after taking the above problem into consideration, and aims to present a fitting detecting connector which has a greater degree of freedom of design.